Urologic Pelvic Pain Research

L-R: Bruce Naliboff, Davis Woodworth, Jen Labus, Suzanne Smith, Lisa Kilpatrick, Cody Ashe-McNalley, Cathy Liu, Jason Kutch, Cara Kulbacki, Emeran Mayer, Benjamin Ellingson
L-R: Bruce Naliboff, Davis Woodworth, Jen Labus, Suzanne Smith, Lisa Kilpatrick, Cody Ashe-McNalley, Cathy Liu, Jason Kutch, Cara Kulbacki, Emeran Mayer, Benjamin Ellingson

Urologic chronic pelvic pain syndromes (UCPPS) are a very common but often misunderstood set of persistent pain conditions that occur in both men and women.  Symptoms include abdominal and pelvic pain and discomfort often associated with urination or bladder filling. Interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) has been diagnosed primarily in women while chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) is a diagnosis exclusive to men. Historically these conditions have been studied separately and limited progress has been in discovery of bladder based therapies for either men or women. Clearly a new approach is needed for these disorders and the CNS Pain Research Program has taken on a leadership role in the largest national consortium study of UCPPS, the MAPP Research Network, funded by the National Institutes of Health. The first study of the Multidisciplinary Approach to Chronic Pelvic Pain (MAPP) network was a multisite longitudinal study of over 600 patients with UCPPS and matched healthy subjects and included biological, symptom and brain imaging data. The goal of this network is to discover important brain and bladder mechanisms that generate symptoms and determine how these mechanisms may differ between women and men or subgroups of patients with primarily pain vs urinary symptoms. The UCLA CNS serves as the lead neuroimaging site for

MAPP and CNS faculty chair and serve on multiple MAPP groups involved in the design and interpretation of data collected across the discover sites. In September 2014, after a very successful first five years of funding the MAPP Network, including UCLA CNS as the lead neuroimaging site, received approved for a second series of follow up studies over the next 5 years.

For more information regarding MAPP,
visit the MAPP website at mappnetwork.org


 

Selected Publications:

  1. Kilpatrick LA, Kutch JJ, Tillisch K, Naliboff BD, Labus JS, Jiang Z, Farmer MA, Apkarian AV, Mackey S, Martucci KT, Clauw DJ, Harris RE, Deutsch G, Ness TJ, Yang CC, Maravilla K, Mullins C, Mayer EA. Alterations in resting state oscillations and connectivity in sensory and motor networks in women with interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome. J Urol. 2014 Sep;192(3):947-55.
  2. Gupta A, Kilpatrick L, Labus J, Tillisch K, Braun A, Hong JY, Ashe-McNalley C, Naliboff B, Mayer EA. Early adverse life events and resting state neural networks in patients with chronic abdominal pain: evidence for sex differences. Psychosom Med. 2014 Jul-Aug;76(6):404-12. PMCID: PMC4113723